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In Their Own Words

— “Cancer is a debilitating disease that impacts millions of Americans and their families every year. . . The defendants took in millions of dollars in donations meant to help cancer patients, but spent it on themselves and their fundraisers. I’m pleased that the FTC and our state partners are acting to end this appalling scheme.”

Jessica Rich, Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, speaking about the charges against four cancer charities alleged to have used donated funds for gifts and travel.

— “Despite the very public campaign by the government to root out bad behavior in finance, it remains a problem that still deserves attention, notwithstanding the industry’s protestations that it has changed.”

New York Times writer Andrew Ross Sorkin on the just-released report which “paints a troubling picture” of Wall Street’s failure to “clean[] itself up” since the financial crisis. Click here for more.

— “Now I have no career, no money, no freedom, no chance of spending quality time with my family and friends, but I also have no regrets. There is no better feeling than truly serving the people. Finding this path wasn’t hard, given the circumstances it was practically illuminating. I have faith that one day the people with the power to make a difference will understand where I’m coming from, and start working towards creating a better world.”

William McNeilly, the whistleblower who went public with security concerns about Britain’s nuclear submarines.

— “Traditionally, there has been a lot of the stigma attached with being a whistleblower, there still is. I think we all grow up with that kind of schoolyard mentality that nobody likes a snitch, and I think that it’s still out there….but it’s lessening as…more and more whistleblowers stories are coming out.”

— “While no one wants tattletales, we do want to provide safety to those who blow the whistle on corporations as well elected and non-elected officials to safeguard the interests of the public. And there is no doubt that that perceived lack of protection helps keep some officials corrupt, people dipping into the cookie jar and would-be whistleblowers whispering.

— “I’m hopeful that more whistleblowers, in whatever venue, in whatever domain they work in will indeed come forth, because if we don’t have a modicum, even a modicum of truth in our governments, how are we to survive as a democracy?”

Retired NSA analyst and whistleblower J. Kirk Wiebe in the wake of the sentencing of CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling to 3 1/2 years in prison. Click here for more.

— “Whistleblowers are not the most beloved people by their leaders. Unfortunately, the system that protects them is really imperfect. Rather than get the corrective action, instead you end up seeing organizations expend more effort to screw with the person who raised the issue.”

Steven Bucci, an analyst on homeland security at The Heritage Foundation, on the “unprecedented rise” of whistleblower retaliation complaints by federal government workers, with the Office of Special Counsel reporting 5,200 complaints in 2014, a 17% increase from the previous year and a 30 % rise from three years ago. Click here for more.

— “They have lost their freedom for the truth, so they remind us how important it is to know the truth.”

Italian sculptor Davide Dormino in connection with his piece titled “Anything to Say?” which he placed in Berlin’s Alexanderplatz and contains life-sized statues of the three whistleblowers — former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and former US soldier Chelsea Manning convicted of violations of the Espionage Act — standing upon chairs, as if speaking in an impromptu public meeting, next to a fourth, empty chair. Click here for more.

— The SEC will protect whistleblowers “against retaliatory conduct and make significant financial awards to whistleblowers who suffer employment hardships as a result of reporting possible securities law violations.”

Sean McKessy, Chief of the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower, in a statement regarding the SEC’s first award to a whistleblower for retaliation. Click here for more.

— “Increased transparency [of settlements] will shut down backroom deal-making and ensure that Congress, citizens and watchdog groups can hold regulatory agencies accountable for strong and effective enforcement that benefits the public interest.”

— “Whistleblowers are the canaries in the constitutional coal mine, speaking truth to power.”

Former NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake, speaking on a recent panel with other government whistleblowers on the Obama administration’s aggressive prosecution of national intelligence whistleblowers and how our government has become “an alien form I don’t recognize.” Click here for more.

— “We are all just here for a time . . . . But the values we hold dear will live on long after we have left this stage. Our responsibility, while we are here, is to breathe life into them; to imbue them with the strength of our convictions and the weight of our efforts.”

Loretta E. Lynch, at her swearing in as the 83rd Attorney General of the United States. Click here for more.

— “It shows the incentives provided for whistleblowers are working well, and all the other controls and detection systems are failing miserably.”

Malcolm Sparrow, a health care fraud expert at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, on the increasing number of whistleblower actions challenging fraud in the Medicare Advantage healthcare program. Click here for more.

— “I’m trained as an attorney, I’m Sicilian, and I’m from New Jersey. If I see you kick a puppy, I’m going to say something. It’s not within me to not say something.”

Real Housewives of New Jersey star Jim Marchese on the recent $8.5 million whistleblower award his mortgage company received in connection with the government’s record $16.65 billion settlement last summer with Bank of America Corp. for allegedly selling shoddy mortgage investments in the run-up to the financial crisis. Click here for more.

— “If you want to know why whistleblowers can seem a little crazy, it’s because anybody who is not a little bit crazy would back away from the ordeal of confronting a corporate behemoth or grinding government bureaucracy.”

— “It was one of those moments, I think, that you can sort of — if you’re plotting it on a graph, the whole game changed from that point on, because, I guess, I had the balls to stand up and I told it how it was.”

Simon Illingworth, former Melbourne, Australia police sergeant who helped expose police corruption and is now enjoying life as a farmer in rural Victoria, growing garlic and raising cattle, who recently shared his whistleblower story on ABC’s Australian Story. Click here for more.

– “[I] told them everything: ‘this is wrong, this is unethical, you’re going to get sued.’ . . . It wasn’t about the money, and it still isn’t.”

Heidi Weber, a former Dean of Minnesota-based for-profit Globe University who won nearly $400,000 against the school which she accused of firing her for complaining about unethical practices. Click here for more.

– “The Snowden case has demonstrated the need to create conditions so that agents can denounce abuses by the intelligence services.”

Jean-Jacques Urvoas, member of the French National Assembly, on his proposed amendment that would legalize the leak of information by intelligence employees if they want to expose an abuse of power by their own authorities. Click here for more.

— “Isolate. Then defame. Moving me to a storage bin makes me feel bad, but they are sending a message. They are trying to suppress [whistleblowers’] willingness to try to make a better life for these veterans.”

– “When it comes to the fight against manipulation and related corruption, sport needs the help and cooperation of governments and governmental authorities and other stakeholders much more than in any other area.”

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach on the IOC’s introduction of a whistleblower hotline open to athletes, coaches, referees and members of the public with “100 percent anonymity” and “the ultimate goal of … protect[ing] the clean athletes and [giving] them, as far as we can, fair competition.” Click here for more.

— “It seems that the human family has refused to learn from its mistakes caused by the law of terror, so that today, too, there are those who attempt to eliminate others with the help of a few, and with the complicit silence of others who simply stand by.”

Pope Francis on the World War I-era slaughter of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks and “his frustration with what he considers global indifference toward the persecution and killing of Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere, especially by militants with the Islamic State.” Click here for more.

– “There’s lots of pockets of ugliness at the (VA). It’s really set the standard for whistleblower retaliation.”

Government Accountability Project Legal Director Tom Devine in connection with the recent efforts of the family of deceased VA whistleblower Christopher Kirkpatrick to pressure the agency to do more to protect whistleblowers so what happened to him “doesn’t happen to anyone else.” Click here for more.

— “The Lenape tribe got a better deal on the sale of Manhattan island than New York City’s pension funds have been getting from Wall Street.”

New York Times writer Patrick McGeehan on the New York City Controller’s Office just-released analysis “that, over the past 10 years, the five pension funds have paid more than $2 billion in fees to money managers and have received virtually nothing in return.” Click here for more.

— “To have former officials in the supplement industry become the chief regulators of that industry at the FDA is like the fox guarding the hen house.”

Michael F. Jacobson, Executive Director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, on the FDA’s failure to take action in the $33 billion-a-year supplements industry which according to a recent study poses a serious health risk. Click here for more.

— “We hope this inspires them to reflect upon the responsibility we all bear to ensure our liberties exist long into the future.”

A group of artists who installed a 100-pound, 4-foot-tall bust of former NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn — by fusing it onto the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument, a memorial to American POWs who lost their lives during the Revolutionary War — for the purpose bringing “a renewed vitality to the space and prompt even more visitors to ponder the sacrifices made for their freedoms.” Click here for more.

– “Keep your nose down and your mouth shut. Start talking and you’ll be on your a**, out of the job.”

Alex Maack, a whistleblower alleging massive contractor fraud on New York City’s $4.45 billion Second Avenue Subway project, on what his supervisor told him on his first day on the job. Click here for more.

– “Isn’t it time to ensure that when the S.E.C. comes knocking, the fine fits the crime?”

New York Times columnist Gretchen Morgenson, calling on Congress for a “more muscular” Securities and Exchange Commission by enabling the agency to recover penalties large enough to fully cover investor losses from securities violations. Click here for more.

– “Medical fraud is happening, and someone needs to be looking for it.”

Seattle Times Editorial Board in urging the “easy decision” of reauthorizing the Washington Medicaid False Claims Act and its qui tam provisions allowing for whistleblowers to share in any government recovery. Click here for more.

– “I hope you have the courage…to clean up society so that there is no longer that stink of corruption.”

Pope Francis, on his visit to one of the most violent and drug-infested neighborhoods in Naples, urging residents not to let organized crime and corrupt politicians rob them of hope. Click here for more.

– “We felt we weren’t being heard within the organization…and we’re still not being heard. You have to reach out until someone hears you…you can’t go home and forget about it. We’re talking about veteran’s lives.”

– “They rarely see themselves as heroes. They’re ordinary people who really, really, really didn’t want to complicate their lives or step into the limelight. But they’re witnesses to something they could no longer stomach.”

New Mexico journalist Sherry Robinson on New Mexico’s proposed legislation that she fears will seriously weaken whistleblower protections. Click here for more.

– “Systematic mass rape and other instances of violence went unreported, un-investigated and covered up, forcing me to blow the whistle last year…. The conspiracy of silence over darfur must stop.”

Aicha Elbasri, former spokesperson for the United Nations Mission in Darfur, in her letter to the International Criminal Court urging it to re-open its investigation of Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir for war crimes and genocide. Click here for more.

— “Retaliation is perhaps the one compliance violation most likely to do irreparable damage to a company’s culture and employee morale. . . . It stifles transparency, erodes trust in leadership, eliminates future reports and, at its worst, it drives the disenfranchised employee outside the organization and into the arms of regulators.”

—“I don’t think this is because women are inherently more ‘moral’ than men. [Instead, it shows] that gender diversity is a good proxy for more general cognitive diversity….”

Anne Richards, a high-ranking executive at one of the largest investment firms in Europe, on a new study (by MSCI Inc.) showing that “companies that invest in gender diversity at high levels are less likely to fall prey to fraud, corruption, and other scandalous episodes.” Click here for more.

– “The public needs to know that the EU institutions welcome whistleblowing and protect whistleblowers against retaliation to make sure that serious misconduct or wrongdoing in the EU administration are brought to light.”

European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly on the failure of several European bodies — including the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the Court of Justice of the European Union — to adopt required internal whistleblower rules. Click here for more.

L. Dennis Kozlowski, the Tyco executive convicted in 2005 for looting nearly $100 million from the company, who State parole officials informed last week that for the first time in nearly a decade he is entirely free of penal supervision. Click here for more.

— “Now we have another reason for the public to learn about the glories of amphetamine — it’s very worrisome.”

Dr. Lawrence H. Diller, a behavioral pediatrician in Walnut Creek, California, on drug-maker Shire’s newly-introduced campaign to promote Vyvanse to treat binge-eating disorder which some are saying is going too far to market a type of amphetamine classified by the government as having a high potential for abuse. Click here for more.

– “This report epitomizes the utter lack of protection for national security whistleblowers. This is a pathetic, anemic excuse for an investigation.”

Jesselyn Radack, Government Accountability Project attorney and counsel for NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake, on the recently released Pentagon report acknowledging the Inspector General’s investigation into Drake’s allegations of retaliation only looked into 2 of the 10 years of the alleged retaliatory conduct. Click here for more.

February 23, 2015

— “This report confirms that reforms are needed to empower whistleblowers at FBI and ensure they are effectively and efficiently protected against retaliation in the workplace.”

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on the Government Accountability Office report released today revealing challenges facing whistleblowers at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, including limited protections for whistleblower disclosures and long delays in addressing retaliation claims. Click here for more.

— “I am not a martyr. . . . I thought it was my duty to stimulate public debate.“

Antoine Deltour, the LuxLeaks whistleblower who exposed how companies ranging from Ikea to Pepsi funneled money through Luxembourg to lower their tax bills, and who is now being charged with theft and breaking Luxembourg’s professional secrecy laws. Click here for more.

— “The foreign exchange settlements are likely to yield more fines, more empty promises of reform, and guilty pleas that lend an appearance of justice without actually delivering the accountability or deterrence that is the aim of justice.”

New York Times Editorial Board on the Department of Justice’s impending settlements with several big banks for alleged price rigging in the multitrillion-dollar market for trading foreign currencies. Click here for more.

Richard Faulkner and Richard Chernick, the two arbitrators in the Lance Armstrong/SCA Promotions arbitration, from their decision ordering Armstrong and former team owner Tailwind Sports to pay $10 million in their fraud dispute with the promotions company. Click here for more.

—“It seems to be that every time effective investigators like the ones we work with begin to turn over rocks, they find creepy crawly things.”

Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara on his office’s ongoing investigations of political corruption “all over” New York State, 3 weeks after charging New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver in a bribe and kickback scheme and after putting six other downstate legislators in prison. Click here for more.

—“I tell them there’s nothing wrong with slowly lowering your hand and quietly looking for another job. But for god’s sake, don’t stick around and do nothing.”

Richard Bowen, University of Texas accounting teacher and Citigroup mortgage fraud whistleblower, on what his students should do in the face of fraud or misconduct in their future employment. Click here for more.

—“You have sent out exactly the wrong message. Whistleblowers are pawns who will not receive help, even from you.”

Prominent UK National Health Service whistleblower Dr. David Drew in his letter to Sir Robert Francis complaining that Sir Robert’s recent call for new NHS whistleblower protections fails to help whistleblowers who have already suffered retaliation. Click here for more.

– “If he wants to sue a minimum-wage whistleblower, he can have at it.”

Ryan Honl, A Gulf War veteran and former employee at the Tomah Veterans Affairs Medical Center, who has been threatened with a lawsuit by the medical center’s chief of staff, David Houlihan, dubbed by some veterans as the “Candy Man” for his supposedly loosed distribution of painkillers. Click here for more.

– “I’m not a white knight, but there is something beautiful and exhilarating about establishing the truth.”

Herve Falciani on his journey from computer expert to fugitive to the whistleblower who exposed HSBC’s efforts to help some of its wealthy clients evade hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. Click here for more.

From instant-messaging exchange between two S&P analysts cited by government in its lawsuit against the ratings agency for allegedly fraudulent ratings of mortgage securities and which S&P just settled for nearly $1.5 billion. Click here for more.

— “Until the NCAA recognizes that some players are essentially professionals, universities will continue to treat their education like the fig leaf it is.”

New York Times Editorial Board on the recently filed lawsuit by two former University of North Carolina athletes challenging the school with academic fraud for how it educates its top athletes. Click here for more.

— “Despite promises to be ‘the most transparent administration ever,’ the executive branch has led an unprecedented crackdown on whistleblowers and those who leak information about national security matters to journalists without government approval.”

RT report on the conviction of CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling for violating the Espionage Act. Click here for more.

— “I think I did everything the right way based on the training and the information I had at the time. And I would do it again. I took a sworn oath as a law enforcement officer to risk my life to save other lives, and I’ve been lucky to get all of the support that I get. Most whistleblowers don’t get any support and throw in the towel. I just lost my job – better men and women than me have given up their lives to protect others.”

Whistleblower Robert MacLean in our interview with him on whether he would blow the whistle again. Click here for more.

— “They pay tons of attention to increasing animal production, and just a pebble-sized concern to animal welfare.”

James Keen, a scientist and veterinarian who worked at the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center for 24 years, in connection with the New York Times investigation finding the Center’s work in increasing meat production has “come at a steep cost to the center’s animals, which have been subjected to illness, pain and premature death, over many years.” Click here for more.

— “The Government’s decision to pay a contractor for providing base security in an active combat zone would be influenced by knowledge that the guards could not, for lack of a better term, shoot straight.”

From the Fourth Circuit decision in United States v. Triple Canopy, Inc. reversing the district court’s dismissal of the government’s False Claims Act case against Triple Canopy for allegedly billing the government for unqualified security guards in Iraq. Click here for more.

— “The significance of this goes beyond Jim Risen. It affects journalists everywhere. Journalists need to be able to uphold that confidentiality in order to do their jobs.”

Attorney for NYT reporter James Risen on the Justice Department’s decision not to call Risen to testify at the trial of CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling who is charged with providing Risen details about a botched US operation in Iran intended to disrupt that country’s nuclear program. Click here for more.

— “The corporate assault on the public’s whistleblower protections is part of a broader attack by wall street and big corporations to undermine or repeal well-established safeguards for our safety and health, the environment, and financial security.”

David Tykulsker, general counsel of the New Jersey Work Environment Council, on the New Jersey Supreme Court’s pending decision on whether to effectively gut the state’s main whistleblower protection statute, the Conscientious Employees Protection Act. Click here for more.

— “Companies are sure to resist efforts to broaden the [Dodd-Frank whistleblower] anti-retaliation provision. But they could find themselves on the wrong side of the issue by appearing to shield wrongdoing if they fight efforts to encourage whistle-blowing.”

New York Times writer Peter J. Henning from his piece on Who Is a Whistle-Blower? The Courts Weigh In. Click here for more.

— “Revelations from brave whistleblowers are essential for the informed consent of the governed.”

From Norman Solomon, author of ‘War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death, in his Huffington Post piece on Why Jeffrey Sterling Deserves Support as a CIA Whistleblower. Click here for more.

— “I’m actually proud of the fact I was able to put a stop to it. So often people let things slide and look the other way. If I had just quit, I knew things would just continue the way they were.”

Amy Farrow, the NP Precision whistleblower, on her efforts which led to the guilty plea of the company’s chief regarding his theft of $1.2M in funds the government paid the company under two US Army contracts. Click here for more.

— “The reason I reported it was because I couldn’t let it go on anymore. I was afraid for my safety and career but I…decided to go ahead with it.”

Whistleblower Amy Farrow who reported defense contractor NP Precision Inc. was misusing progress payments on government contracts by failing to pay subcontractors and requesting progress payments under the contracts for costs that NP Precision had not actually incurred, and without the intention of using the progress payments for the costs and contracts at issue. Click here for more.

— “From the beginning, I acted out of conviction, for my ideas, not to appear in the media.”

Antoine Deltour, the 28-year-old former PricewaterhouseCoopers auditor charged with theft and violating trade secrets in Luxembourg in the wake of the LuxLeaks tax avoidance scandal. Click here for more.

— “This law will restrict the peoples’ right to know. It’s full of ambiguity and will take us back to the ‘public peace and order’ controls of World War II.”

From Tomoki Hiyama, one of approximately 800 people who gathered in front of the Japanese Parliament, protesting Japan’s new anti-whistleblower secrecy law which will limit disclosure of government misconduct by imposing on anyone leaking state secrets (and on journalists helping them) up to 10 years in prison. Click here for more.

— “Undisclosed conflicts raise questions about the decision-making capacity of the committees and whether the public can have confidence in their recommendations.”

From Joseph Ross, associate professor at Yale School of Medicine, on the Wall Street Journal report that many doctors who sit on Food and Drug Administration panels reviewing medical devices have links to device makers undisclosed by the FDA. Click here for more.

— “I will not tolerate retaliation against an employee who makes such a report, and the city cannot afford to have employees second guess whether or not to make such a report.”

From Charlotte, North Carolina City Manager Ron Carlee on his decision to hire an independent third party to investigate an allegation the city fired a fire department investigator for complaining about what she believed to be unhealthy conditions in a new building to house the arson task force.

— “It takes a toll financially and emotionally. In a relatively small country like Australia, you lose your livelihood; and, at my stage in life, the financial security you were building for your family. But we all need to consider how we want our lives measured.”

Whistleblower Bonita Mersiades discussing why she reported misconduct she perceived occurring in FIFA’s bidding process for hosting the World Cup.

— “This is one of the most important public health nutrition policies ever to be passed nationally. Right now, you are totally guessing at what you are getting. This rule will change that.”

From Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, on the FDA’s announcement of sweeping rules on disclosing calorie counts at chain restaurants, movie theatres and pizza houses across the country.

— “But even worse, we then received another order telling us to cancel all our hotel rooms – the missions would be cancelled. We would not be on any flights, despite the fact that we had all been warned of a credible terrorist threat.”

Former Air Marshal and whistleblower Robert MacLean, explaining one of the dangers that compelled him to go public with his concerns.

— “It got so bad that the agency was dispatching supervisors to the airports, not to do investigations or try to find IEDs or look for suspicious passengers, but to find air marshals not wearing suits and ties to discipline them.”

From Whistleblower Insiderinterview with former US Air Marshal whistleblower Robert MacLean.